On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 16:28:57 -0500 Mike Mueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Friday 07 November 2003 13:27, Ron Johnson wrote: > > On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 11:45, Jonathan Dowland wrote: > > > On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 11:01:58AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: > > > > As in "proprietary, closed-source apps"? > > > > > > > > Well, that depends on if you see them as a "problem", or > > > > something that you prefer not to use. > <snip> > > > Personally I haven't really made my mind up about prioprietry > > > apps, and whether RMS is right or not. However, the success of > > > Linux is widely attributed to the open-source development model, > > > so I can't really see the future of Linux throwing it away. Open source success comes from the wealth of the innovative factor of the entire public domain. > > > > I'm all for the open-source development model. However, we must > > respect that some companies want to keep their source closed, and > > still sell to the Linux market. Whereas with this scenario we have a party who does not contribute, retains full possession, and only sells the use of the product.There is also the factor of how much code has been stolen from the public domain, and is being sold back to them. > > I'm fascinated with this question from a practical perspective. > > The RMS model works when producers can afford to present a gift or > when a community organizes to accomplish a goal (barn-raising, for > example). > > Let's say you're a barn builder. People need barns and are used to > buying barns now-a-days. You go around to the community and suggest a > community barn-raising project. Everyone agrees but you soon find out > the participants are barn users and not barn builders. The community > is more than happy to use the barn you give them for free if you'll do > it for free. You talk to your family and they remind you that they'll > starve if you build barns for free. So you offer to build barns for a > price and you find that people are willing to buy the barns because > they don't want to learn barn-building. Perhaps they do. Many hands make light work. This is how all barns were built at one stage, until something changed our sense of community. Entire barns would be erected in a day, and it wasn't just work, it was a social occassion with everyone involved including the kids, while the girls got together on a picnic lunch-that also being a collective effort with a free interchange of recipes and methods. It wasn't just barns that got built this way, houses and community (there's that word again) buildings did too. While they are working together, the barn-builder gets enough ideas in turn to feed his family twice over. "Sure Ted, it's easy. I'll be round on Tuesday and show you how it's done." > > The quilting bee in the church basement, on the other hand, is a > well-oiled machine because there are enough quilters that can do the > work Only because somebody else showed them how to do it in the first place. and enjoy it and they all get quilts out of the deal which is > good because it gets chilly at night around there. Everybody profits. So they turn up > regularly to quilt and talk trash about the people that are not > quilters And there's that social factor again, with the free interchange of ideas, and opportunities for aspects such as cross-cultural appreciation. - especially that barn builder that first said he was going > to build a free barn for everybody in town but later changed his mind > and how he should just get a barn-raising group together and everybody > should help to build barns for everone in the group just like they do > with quilts. > > I can relate to the barn builder in my own endeavors. I sure like > that quilt on my bed too. > -- > Mike Mueller > 324881 (08/20/2003) The problem with the internet is that it permits us to get to know each other, and to appreciate each others' thought processes by way of direct interchange. Utilities such as imaginary lines on maps, nationalism, theologies, cannot convince me that you are 'the pit of all evil' if I have learnt by way of practical experience, the only source of true knowledge, that you are not. We are not building a quilt or a barn here, we are weaving the very fabric of the medium of our common social interchange, and we must be very careful that they of the 'closed source mentality', whether corporate, governmental, or a collusion of both, do not take it from us so that they can further bend us to their purpose. Regards, David. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
